If you want to have a single takeaway from the 40-minute joint presser with GM Tom Fitzgerald and coach Sheldon Keefe, it’s that both are on the same page that this year while it wasn’t a disaster – also wasn’t satisfactory either. While the GM admitted that clearly the roster wasn’t good enough to win a Cup because they went out in five games in the first round, the coach was also closer to drilling down on my feelings when he said basically ‘we finished 16th out of 32 teams which is average, we don’t want to settle for being average’.

I was at least glad the question was asked why did things get worse right after Christmas, and Keefe gave the expected corporate answer of that being something we have to drill down on and look into. I do wonder why it took nearly a full two weeks after the playoffs for us to finally hear from both the GM and the coach when there was always going to be very little in terms of substantial news out of it. Besides the injury news – which I’ll get to in a moment – the most noteworthy tidbit was Fitz all but admitting that 2023 second-rounder Lenni Hameenaho was likely to be playing in North America next year.

Perhaps he’ll be part of the answer to the depth up front issue that clearly plagued the team this year even before the late-season injury to Jack Hughes, the Finnish winger put up twenty goals and fifty-one points in 58 games for his Finnish pro team this year and he’s obviously our most promising forward prospect at this point along with the recently signed Arseny Gritsyuk, a 2019 fifth-rounder only coming overseas for his first North American season next year after putting up seventeen goals and forty-four points in 51 games for his KHL team, a season just concluded a few weeks ago. Not sure if those two and/or retaining the likes of Cody Glass and Daniel Sprong will be enough to address the depth issue but it’s at least a hopeful start.

Injury-wise, no matter how bad you expect things to be after a full NHL season plus playoffs, they always wind up being worse than you fear with the latest examples being the revelations that Simon Nemec never truly healed from his offseason shoulder issue last year, and Jesper Bratt also had a shoulder procedure done. With Nemec, you wonder what this organization is thinking sometimes when it comes to player management…it’s one thing when you have guys playing through injuries while in the NHL lineup but why not have a surgery once he started the season off poorly and was demoted?

Never mind the injuries we already knew about, which were bad enough in addition to the confirmation that Johnny Kovacevic (knee surgery) wouldn’t be ready for camp which is four months away. In happier news, it does seem like Brendan Dillon’s neck injury shouldn’t be an issue by the beginning of camp. While neither Hughes brother met the media after the season for seemingly obvious reasons – injury rehab being the stated excuse, but I’m also sure nobody was sorry that they avoided the inevitable Quinn questions after Jim Rutherford’s silly comments this offseason – at least it seems like both should also be ready for camp.

How well the two Hughes we currently have will be able to stay healthy – given that both have had multiple shoulder problems already – is a severe question, but one that’s also kind of hard to really address. Clearly both will need to stay healthy for this team to make deep playoff runs in the future. Right now, it feels like this was just a wasted year with a wide-open Eastern Conference with the talented but mercurial Leafs seemingly the best bet to go to the Finals over a banged up Panther team and two decidedly mediocre Metro clubs.

I’ve thought about doing a deep dive on this team but it really won’t be anything I haven’t said in the majority of these blogs from December on. We need more from our forward group in the playoffs – while Nico Hischier clearly showed up and was the best player for the Devils, the Devils’ other top players either weren’t around, or just didn’t play like it enough during the Canes series and really going back to the 2023 playoffs as well. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered this year with the Devils’ other issues, but they’ll need more from guys from Bratt (who was possibly inhibited by the deteriorating shoulder), Timo Meier and obviously good health from both Hughes brothers. Obviously we need to improve the depth up front at all levels of the organization.

They obviously need more consistent goaltending from Jacob Markstrom, who’s still under contract through next year and they have to make a decision on his backup given that Jake Allen is a UFA. Will next year finally be the one they entrust the backup role to one of the younger goalies like Nico Daws, or will they just re-sign Allen or another stopgap and essentially render Daws (who I believe is waiver-eligible next year) trade bait? Defensively don’t expect many changes there unless we do flip Dougie Hamilton, who’s got a comprehensive NTC, but even with him the transition game from the blueline needs to improve.

There aren’t seemingly many avenues to address this deficiency with the amount of defensemen – Hamilton, Kovacevic, Brett Pesce and Jonas Siegenthaler – signed to long term deals, not even including Luke, who hopefully will sign long-term soon himself. Dillon is also signed for the next two years, so there isn’t even really an open spot to retain playoff revelation Brian Dumoulin at the moment. If a change is made, it should be to open up a spot for Nemec somehow, after his return to last year’s form in the playoffs. Nemec alone might help the transition game but probably not enough, another change might need to come but again it’s hard to see where that comes from at the moment.

Fitz definitely has his work cut out for him…at least I didn’t have to pay attention to the NHL Draft Lottery this year, a lottery the Islanders somehow won but one without a clear standout player it would seem. Oh well, the time’s well past to hope for draft picks to be anything other than supplemental players and trade depth. We had a fast, speedy team two years ago and a slow, grittier team this year but we need to recalibrate and have some elements of both in the lineup. And also do a deep dive medically why this group seems to have so many doggone shoulder injuries.